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Top 6 Major Factors of Social Change – Explained!

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1. Demographic Factors:

Gunnar Myrdal (1968) observes that in Europe the changes have taken the form of a ‘demographic transition’ from high to low rates of both births and deaths, without a very wide gap developing between the two. In the case of Japan, due to late start of change, a gap developed between the two. In South Asia, the trend has been towards a gradually widening gap culminating into a ‘demographic explosion’. In India, economic development has not kept pace with the population growth.

Improvement in per capita income and standards of living in India will be possible only with a check on the fast growing population. India is not in a position to invest in improvements of its economy because of the high cost of feeding its people. There is a frightening rate of population growth.

Overpopulation results in the problems of unemployment and underemployment, poverty, housing shortage, illiteracy, poor health and crowding of towns and cities as there is an increase in migration from rural to urban areas. Malthusian theory does not apply to the Indian situation because the death rate has come down considerably due to improvement in health conditions. However, there has been much less change in the birth rate.

2. Technological Factors:

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Technology brings about significant changes in human society. The Industrial Revolution was a product of new advances in science and technology. Thorstein Veblen (1994) worked out his theory of leisure and the leisure class on the basis of new strides in scientific fields. The class which extracts the maximum surplus due to advancement in the technological field spends conspicuously on consumption items with a view to achieve social recognition. W.F. Obgurn (1964) has propounded the theory of ‘cultural lag’ to explain the lack of correspondence between technological advancement and social change.

Technology changes faster than culture, hence, culture lags behind. However, one view is that such a hiatus does not exist in India. Culture changes faster in India than technology, because the latter is not coming up faster than culture.

Industrialisation and the green revolution are two major processes of change in Indian economy. Along with these changes, we also notice changes in transportation and communication, electrification and irrigation which have changed the village scene to a large extent. New classes and modes of social relations have emerged in the countryside. Industrial townships have brought about a new pattern of class relations.

Towns like Jamshedpur, Bhilai, Rourkela, Bokaro, Bhiwandi, and Dharuheda are examples of the process of industrialisation in post-independence India. The cities such as Noida, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune have become centres of computer and software technology. Thousands of engineers and technocrats are working in these cities.

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India’s industrial development has been slow, particularly in the pre-independence period. The British imposed heavy taxes on traditional Indian goods. The British ruined India’s traditional trades and crafts through its commercial policy. Restrictions were imposed upon Indians exporting to the West, while favours were granted to British exporters, who flooded the Indian markets.

Even today, only a little more than 10 per cent of the total workforce is engaged in industry. A little more than 6 per cent of the national income comes from the industrial sector. Despite this gloomy picture, India does not lack in industrial resources. A very substantial percentage of the urban population is employed in industry. Iron ore deposits, deposits of limonite, manganese, chromium, gold, gypsum, mica, bauxite, limonite and non-ferrous metals are available in substantial quantities. There is encouraging potential for hydroelectric power, engineering, chemical and steel industries. India has made a mark in computer engineering and electronics and information technology. The Indian engineers and managers hold high positions in America and other developed countries.

The industrial development of India began with the intro­duction of railways in the middle of the nineteenth century. The main railway centres became hubs of industrial development. After 1860, British industrial supremacy was challenged by Germany, America and Japan, and this challenge also encouraged the indus­trial development of India. Using cheap labour, they managed to defeat foreign competition while bringing in high profits.

The British also began to invest by establishing some new industries in India. Charles Bettelheim (1968) observes that “throughout the nineteenth century, a mercantile, money lending bourgeoisie was taking shape in Indian society, its roots already formed in numerous existing trade centres of varying prosperity”.

It is evident that Indian commercial and moneyleriding capital was partially transformed into industrial capital largely due to change in the British policy. Industrialisation took new strides in the twentieth century. New industries came up in place of the tradi­tional ones. Industrial output increased and the industrial labour force increased manifold. Today, the Indian industrial proletariat is employed mainly in big industrial enterprises. However, big indus­tries are concentrated in a few towns located in some states.

The edifice of modernity has been constructed in India on social, ecological and regional disparities right from the beginning of the British Raj. It was a hierarchical society, and continues to be so in many ways with some transformations in legal, administrative, social and economic fields.

Noticeable changes in agriculture took place earlier due to road, railway and canal construction. Today, besides these factors, the green revolution which includes the use of chemical fertilisers, high-yielding seeds, new techniques of irrigating fields, and also the use of tractors and other mechanical devices, has brought about significant changes in India’s rural economy.

The British appointed a zamindar with the specific right to get commission on the land revenue he collected for the Raj. The zamindar not only collected land revenue but he also collected charges, fees and a variety of taxes from the people in his ‘Mahal’ (area of jurisdiction).

A new form of local power structure emerged with these zamindars at the top. Below the zamindars were the raiyats (proprietory cultivators), who were given the right to cultivate land as permanent tenants and had direct access to the British revenue officials. Sharecroppers, tenants-at-will, agricultural labourers and kamins (servants) were other categories of people who belonged to various caste groups.

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Priests and moneylenders were other influential classes, besides the zamindars. Different caste and occupational groups were dependent upon each other through the ‘jajmani’ system (an arrangement of fulfilling duties and obligations assigned to each caste group). Changes have taken place in India’s social, economic and political structure due to legal and administrative reforms, education, industrialisation, green revolution and scientific and technological advancements. Family, caste, village and city have been greatly affected by these changes.

3. Economic Factors:

Karl Marx (1970) is the chief architect of the economic theory of social change. According to him, the mode of production deter­mines social, cultural, religious and political aspects of social life. Marx speaks of change in terms of thesis, antithesis and synthesis as stages of social formation corresponding with feudalism, capitalism and socialism, respectively. Capitalism has emerged because of the contradictions emanating from feudalism.

Socialism would emerge from capitalism as a result of class struggle. There are two classes in the capitalistic system, viz., the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The latter are wage-earners and the former are extractors of surplus. Capitalism might come under severe strain when wage-earners would challenge its hegemony. A revolutionary change alone is the solution for the ills of capitalism.

Intellectuals, leaders and academics have been influenced by the essence of Marxism. The quintessence of the Marxist approach is that material conditions are basic to Indian society, and change in these conditions would automatically bring about corresponding change in other spheres of life.

There are two implications of this view:

(1) Industry and agriculture are interrelated; and

(2) Agricul­tural production in India is capitalistic in its form as well as content.

In view of these assumptions, what one needs is a scrutiny as to whether there has been structural change in terms of shifting of economic power from one group or class to another; and whether technological devices have further consolidated the traditional inequalities (based on caste, status and landownership) or reduced them considerably.

There are instances of structural change, particularly during the early years of our independence. The jagirdars and zamindars lost their landholdings as a result of the abolition of these systems of land tenure. The tenants were benefited by these reforms, because proprietory rights were granted to them to own the landholdings which were earlier owned by their masters. This change refers to an obverse structural process of change. In the case of landlords, it can be called as proletarianisation, and in the context of tenants it can be referred as bourgeoisiefication.

F.G. Bailey (1957) has noted a similar process of change in Orissa. With the abolition of landlordism, the toddy-tappers, who used to supply liquor to their landlords, began selling all their produce in the open market. In a short spell of time, their economic condition improved immensely, and conversely that of the landlords deteriorated. The landlords sold their lands to the toddy-tappers, who had gained substantial purchasing power from the sale of their traditional produce in the open market. This change also marked the end of exploitation of the poor and a beginning of social and economic equality.

In India, one finds a heterogeneity of socio-economic structure and an array of social tensions and conflicts. India is a developing country in which the pre-capitalist social categories co-exist with the capitalist ones. Marx basically thought of the problems of an industrial society, whereas India even today remains pre-eminently an agrarian economy with primeval social formation. India is a highly complex and differentiated society.

Differentiation of the peasantry itself provides a very complex picture. The mode of production in agriculture is, to a large extent, semi-feudal, semi-colonial, semi-capitalistic and also non-capitalistic or tradi­tional. Variations are found along with caste and regional ramifications. Family labour is still a stark reality of agriculture in India.

The state, as a welfare agency, has played a significant role in India’s economic development. The abohtion of traditional systems of land tenure such as zamindari and jagirdari, ceiling on landholdings, promotion of credit cooperative societies and other programmes of economic upliftment are positive indications of the state’s policies and programmes. The effects of these policies and programmes and of the green revolution can be seen in the form of a new level of social transformation.

A new form of unevenness has also emerged due to socio-economic development. Caste has transformed itself to adapt to the demands of the new situations. Family cannot remain struc­turally joint, since family members often do not live at the same place.

Family has acquired a ‘functional jointness’ by helping its members while they remain at different and distant places. The constraints today are such that members of a family cannot generally find jobs at the same place. Thus, change in India is more in the form of transformation rather than replacement. It is more accretive than cumulative.

4. Cultural Factors:

The cultural structure of India includes sanskritic and local tradi­tions. Tradition has been taken as a focal point of study by several scholars, including Robert Redfield, Milton Singer, McKim Marriott, Yogendra Singh, etc. The main argument is that a change in ideas, norms, values, rituals and religious observances is a precon­dition to bring about basic changes in economic and social relations.

Max Weber (1958) finds that the protestant work ethic imbedded in certain elements promotes economic development. On the contrary, Hinduism, because of its emphasis on asceticism, discourages capitalistic economic development. However, recent studies of caste and family have shown that there is nothing negative and regressive in the Hindu ethic to retard or obstruct economic development.

Milton Singer (1972), in his study of entrepreneurs of Madras, shows that caste and joint family have positively contributed to business and entrepreneurship. He finds Gunnar Myrdal’s idea of ‘obstacles’ created by institutional factors in the modernisation of India immaterial due to the resilience of caste, family and Hinduism. Caste has made inroads into politics, elections and government jobs. Members of a family help each other in economic and other pursuits. This has helped them manage their economic and business enterprises better.

M.N. Srinivas (1966) has emphasised on the significance of cultural and caste mobility as a source of social change in India. A caste group can elevate its position by emulating the ideas and practices of a superior caste group or of some of its members. In this process of change the sanskritising castes also discard those tradi­tional callings and practices which have kept them in lower positions for centuries.

Education, salaried jobs and migration to towns have also helped the lower caste groups in status elevation. It is also a fact that such efforts were met with protests from the dominant castes as they were taken as a threat to their traditional hegemony. Conflicts between the upper and the lower castes have occurred whenever the lower castes defied their traditional obliga­tions towards the upper caste jajmans and landlords.

Besides resistance to these efforts of the lower castes, the upper castes have found alternative bases of social status through westernisation of their lifestyles, higher education, lucrative jobs, migration to cities and entrenchment into politics. The net result is the continuity of social and economic hiatus between various caste and class groups. Cultural mobility, however, has latent potentiality for social change besides creating a psychological awakening among the depressed sections of Indian society.

5. Legal and Administrative Factors:

Law has played an immense role in bringing about social change in Indian society. Indian society is complex and heterogeneous and law can ensure homogeneity and assimilation of divergent sections. Law can bring about radical changes, particularly favouring the lower sections.

It can be an instrument of change in political and economic institutions and also in mitigating social evils and reforming the educational system. Knowledge of law can make a man rational and humane by exposing the irrationalities of dogmas and superstitions. Law can attack the age-old dysfunctional institu­tions. It can bring about rural social transformation, discipline and scientific and rational attitudes.

However, law alone cannot do much without corresponding changes in the structure of society and moral fibre of the people. Public opinion is a stronger means of change. Values cannot be changed by law alone. Law remains an ineffective means of change and control if it affects the poor only and leaves the rich out of its orbit.

Yogendra Singh (1976; 1989) refers to three functions of law:

(1) As an indicator of change,

(2) As an initiator of change, and

(3) As an integrator of change.

Law performs an integrative or assimilative function. In India, the legal system is a historical product. It has colonial and feudal roots. Law was elite-sponsored and served the elite strata and the urban middle classes. The Constitution of India is the monumental instrument of the modern legal system. It incorporates the principles of equality, social justice, freedom and secularism. The Constitution recognises cultural pluralism as a positive phenomenon.

However, caste-based inequalities and economic and social backwardness of the people still exist. Despite these positive elements, the Constitution is full of contradictions. For example, it guarantees fundamental rights, but does not include in the fundamental rights the right to work. Thus, what is necessary for the poorer sections of society has not been included in the fundamental rights of the people.

Generally speaking, some lacunae have been found in legislations. In fact, the legal system depends upon the political system for its legitimation. Legislations were formulated for bringing about land reforms in the 1950s, but they were imple­mented half-heartedly in most of the states of India.

Caste and untouchability are illegal, but, in practice, both persist openly or in camera. Provision for seeking divorce exists, but very few women come forward to seek divorce against their cruel husbands. A stringent anti-dowry law exists, but dowry continues to grow in its ugliest form without any check.

A number of legislations related to egalitarian measures have remained ineffective because of inbuilt flaws and indifferences of the law implementers. Despite these limitations, law remains an integrative and corrective measure in Indian society. Efforts are being made to check the problems of black money, tax evasion, and corruption by having stringent laws.

6. Political Factors:

The right to vote in elections, from village panchayat to parliament, has created a great deal of social and political awakening since independence. Both men and women have participated in general elections and elections for village panchayats and municipal bodies.

As a result of these elections, one finds administrative and political linkages between the village, block, district, state and centre. These linkages are also found in regard to political parties and their leadership. Political parties have not only been working for winning elections, they have also taken up issues of national interest and ideological nature.

Sometimes one feels that everything is patterned on party lines in towns and villages. Castes, communities, specific issues and problems are looked at from the point of view of a given political party. Factions and cleavages are formed on party lines. Ideological divides are also found within political parties, and these are linked with social divisions based on castes and sub-castes and classes, and religious or ethnic groupings.

Politicisation of castes and other social entities has led to social mobilisation in elections. The numerically preponderant caste groups have often been able to acquire positions of power by forging unity at the time of elections. The principal peasant castes in various states have been very effective in elections despite their social and educational backwardness to the upper castes. At times, the traditionally entrenched castes are at the receiving end in the game of power politics.

The Indian voter has reacted very strongly on crucial issues connected with elections. The elections of 1967, 1971, 1977, 1980, and 1984 for Lok Sabha are noteworthy in this context. In the 1967 elections, the Congress Party lost in more than half of the states. In the 1971 elections, which were held after the formation of Bangladesh, the Congress came to power with an overwhelming majority. The Congress again lost badly in the 1977 elections, which were hold after lifting of the national emergency.

Emergency was imposed in June 1975. Since the Janata Party failed to deliver the goods, which had come to power in 1977, the Congress came out as the victorious party in the 1980 elections. The elections of 1984 were held after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

The electorate disapproved of strongly such a crime and elected the Congress Party to power, breaking all earlier records of victory with more than three-fourth strength in Lok Sabha. The Lok Sabha elections of November 1989 and June 1991 were signifi­cantly different from all the earlier elections. Both the times the Congress emerged as the single largest party. In 1989, the Congress decided not to form the government.

The Janata Dal formed the government with the support of the left parties, the Bhartiya Janata Party and some other smaller parties. The 1991 elections witnessed a large-scale violence in some parts of the country. Rajiv Gandhi, the President of the Congress Party and the former Prime Minister of India, was assassinated while proceeding to address an election meeting at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991.

The Congress Party, though not enjoying an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha, formed the government. The 1996 elections for Lok Sabha resulted into a hung parliament. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) comprising of nearly two dozen political parties with the BJP in the driving seat formed the government.

In the elections held in 2004, the Congress emerged as the single largest party. The Congress formed the government under the banner of the United Progressive Alliance (UFA), a formation of several political parties like the NDA. This brief survey speaks of the prudence of the Indian electorate and the success of democracy in India.